San Diegans looking for Baby BP

[True_Avery]

Hello,

Me and my Sister are thinking of putting our money together and buying a Ball Python. This is not our only experience with pets and reptiles, but we'd like to do this right.

Living in San Diego seems to put us at odds for purchasing. We'd like a Normal (nothing fancy), and if at all possible a Baby/Young Normal but after a few hours on the interwebs I can't seem to find any breeders in Southern California. I'd like to be close to the breeder, and if at all possible see the snake since we're a little paranoid about shipped snakes. Call us old fashioned, but we'd like to see the snake before hand.

The only places to get Ball Pythons around here seem to be pet shops like Petco and privately owned shops. While I'm fine with buying supplies from them, I definitely think twice about buying from petshops that, more often than not, don't even know how to house the animals they are holding.

So, I have a few options. I can order way out of town and hope... or I can stab myself in the foot and drive up north to LLLReptiles and see how their babies look. $20 babies without live shipping is an interesting deal, and I have a -little- hope since most of the complaints seem to stem from shipped animals and not so much their in store goods. I also have a little hope that their babies may be healthier due to less exposure to their store. I know the Petco's nearby have healthy looking BP's, but they are already pretty big and Petco wants some pretty high prices for them.

So, to try and save myself from what horror show may await us at LLLReptiles, does anyone have any Southern California recommendations?

I want a female and my sister wants a male (opinions on size), and we have enough money to put together a pretty respectable tank and buy a baby. We'd like to try and not blow too much money on the baby so we can invest in a healthy tank, but at the same time don't want to buy something that will die of infestation.

Thanks for reading.